dialect continuum that includes French and its closest relatives From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Langues d'oïl (which literally means in English: "languages of yes") is the linguistic and historical name for the Gallo-Romance languages which developed from Latin in the northern territories of Roman Gaul that now are occupied by northern France, part of Belgium and the Channel Islands.
| Oïl | |
|---|---|
| Langues d'oïl | |
| Geographic distribution: | Northern and central France, Belgium, Switzerland |
| Linguistic classification: | Indo-European |
| Proto-language: | Old French |
| Subdivisions: |
see below
|
 The geographical spread of the Oïl languages (other than French) can be seen in shades of green and yellow on this map | |
Langue d'oïl (in the singular), Oïl dialects and Oïl languages (in the plural) refer to all the ancient northern Gallo-Romance languages as well as their modern-day descendants. The most widely spoken modern Oïl language is French, but others include Norman, Walloon, Picard, Gallo, Poitevin-Saintongeais, and Champenois.
They share many common linguistic features. One of them is that Oïl (pronounced [wil], or [wi] as in modern French oui), was the ancestor of the word for yes that is used in all of the Oïl languages. Oc is the word used in territories to the south and so the Occitan language is also called langue d'oc (literal English translation: "language of yes").
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